Make Way for Ducklings

The struggling NY Waterway ferry company, which was, to the delight of punning headline writers, bailed out of bankruptcy as recently as last December, is–we can’t help ourselves–wading into unchartered waters.

Earlier this month, a subsidiary named Port Imperial Duck Charterers LLC submitted an application to the Army Corps of Engineers for a pier at 38th Street that would let the company take tourists on amphibious vehicles into and out of the Hudson and around New York streets. These vehicles are commonly known as ducks and pretty much every other seaboard city has them–even some non-seaboard cities like Albany. New York always seems to be the last to get on board.

“New York Waterway currently has an arrangement with Coach USA where they take people out on boats to do sightseeing cruises and then the bus to do land excursions and this would consolidate that,” spokesman Pat Smith said. “You can literally say they are testing the waters.”

Some anti-duck, pro-fish environmentalists don’t like the project. Marcy Benstock, who blocked Westway on behalf of the striped bass, tells the Real Estate that her group, the Clean Air Campaign, will submit testimony to the Army Corps arguing that the pier would constitute unnecessary encroachment of development into the river.